THE SECRET OF WORK
Helping others physically, by removing their physical needs, is indeed great,but the help is great according as the need is greater and according as the help is
far reaching. If a man's wants can be removed for an hour, it is helping him
indeed; if his wants can be removed for a year, it will be more help to him; but
if his wants can be removed for ever, it is surely the greatest help that can be
given him. Spiritual knowledge is the only thing that can destroy our miseries
for ever; any other knowledge satisfies wants only for a time. It is only with the
knowledge of the spirit that the faculty of want is annihilated for ever; so
helping man spiritually is the highest help that can be given to him. He who
gives man spiritual knowledge is the greatest benefactor of mankind and as
such we always find that those were the most powerful of men who helped man
in his spiritual needs, because spirituality is the true basis of all our activities in
life. A spiritually strong and sound man will be strong in every other respect, if
he so wishes. Until there is spiritual strength in man even physical needs cannot
be well satisfied. Next to spiritual comes intellectual help. The gift of
knowledge is a far higher gift than that of food and clothes; it is even higher
than giving life to a man, because the real life of man consists of knowledge.
Ignorance is death, knowledge is life. Life is of very little value, if it is a life in
the dark, groping through ignorance and misery. Next in order comes, of
course, helping a man physically. Therefore, in considering the question of
helping others, we must always strive not to commit the mistake of thinking
that physical help is the only help that can be given. It is not only the last but
the least, because it cannot bring about permanent satisfaction. The misery that
I feel when I am hungry is satisfied by eating, but hunger returns; my misery
can cease only when I am satisfied beyond all want. Then hunger will not make
me miserable; no distress, no sorrow will be able to move me. So, that help
which tends to make us strong spiritually is the highest, next to it comes
intellectual help, and after that physical help.
The miseries of the world cannot be cured by physical help only. Until man's
nature changes, these physical needs will always arise, and miseries will always
be felt, and no amount of physical help will cure them completely. The only
solution of this problem is to make mankind pure. Ignorance is the mother of all
the evil and all the misery we see. Let men have light, let them be pure and
spiritually strong and educated, then alone will misery cease in the world, not
before. We may convert every house in the country into a charity asylum, we
may fill the land with hospitals, but the misery of man will still continue to exist
until man's character changes.
We read in the Bhagavad-Gita again and again that we must all work
incessantly. All work is by nature composed of good and evil. We cannot do
any work which will not do some good somewhere; there cannot be any work
which will not cause some harm somewhere. Every work must necessarily be a
mixture of good and evil; yet we are commanded to work incessantly. Good and
evil will both have their results, will produce their Karma. Good action will
entail upon us good effect; bad action, bad. But good and bad are both bondages
of the soul. The solution reached in the Gita in regard to this bondageproducing
nature of work is that, if we do not attach ourselves to the work we
do, it will not have any binding effect on our soul. We shall try to understand
what is meant by this “non-attachment to” to work.
